Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,14
friends, or . . . ?”
“Mostly titled. Some, like Tavistock, were not.”
“Any dukes?”
“No dukes.”
“I could imagine the Duke of Brexford would have a mistress, given the wife he’s saddled with.”
“The duchess? Saw her once at the theater and her eyes were so cold it near froze my liver to look into them.”
Delilah gave a little laugh. “She hadn’t the time of day for a little bumpkin like me, the daughter of such a minor lord. She never missed an opportunity to make me feel that way, whenever our paths crossed. But she did finally succeed in stealing my cook, the envy of all the households in London.”
A snore crackled through the air. It was Dot, whose head was tipped back, her mouth open wide. The hatpin remained still gripped in her fist. Her cap was sliding off the back of her head.
“Now, Lady Derring, I wish to ask you a question,” Mrs. Breedlove said.
“Very well.”
She was quiet so long that Delilah thought perhaps she’d forgotten what she intended to say.
When she took a breath, it became clear that Angelique was mustering nerve.
“Do you hate me?” She said it quietly and evenly. Her chin had gone up ever so slightly.
Delilah drew in a sharp breath.
She knew what she ought to say. Ought. It was a bully, the oppressor, the weight, that word. What need of it did she have?
“No.” Her voice was low and nearly wondering. “I know you’re asking because it’s the sort of thing one might expect. Granted, at first I was furious to learn about . . . well, you . . . and my pride was rather wounded . . . but none of those feelings lasted terribly long. Maybe it’s the sherry, but I can think of more reasons to like you than to hate you. Though you are a trifle bossy.”
That last bit was definitely the sherry talking.
Angelique’s face illuminated in bemused relief. She leaned back in her chair and Delilah saw her release a breath she seemed to be holding.
“Perhaps you are a saint,” Angelique mused after a moment, critically. She sounded like a dressmaker eyeing a client who’d been wearing the wrong kind of sleeve, one that didn’t suit her. And she had in mind the perfect alternative.
Delilah leaned forward. “Oh, I wish that I were, but I fear I am not. I have simply resolved to be real and truthful when I speak and to live a real and truthful life since so much of my life has apparently been something of a mirage. And being truthful is a bit like foregoing my stays. It’s lovely.”
Angelique gave a startled laugh.
“Can I tell you a shecret? I mean secret.” All at once, the sherry had gotten control of her consonants.
“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.”
“It’s this: I’m not an entirely pleasant person all the time.”
“Oh, I can tell. You are as vicious as a little chipmunk. Grrrowr.”
“Stop that right now.” Delilah clapped her hand down on the table. Both Dot and the snoring man jumped a little, opened their eyes, shut them again. “I won’t have it.”
Angelique’s eyes widened.
“See what I mean?” Delilah said this in a sort of gleeful wonderment. Delilah didn’t apologize. It was just so exhilarating not to lilt.
“I do see.” Angelique sounded as though someone had just explained a tricky mathematical equation to her, to her delight.
“My thoughts are sometimes unkind and even, daresay, shar . . . that is, sarcastic.”
“Never sarcastic! I believe they hung witches at Tyburne for sarcasm.”
Delilah surprised herself by laughing.
And Angelique laughed, too, a merry, genuine sound.
Dot’s head jerked up off her chest and she laughed, too—“ha ha ha!”—sleepily, before nodding off again.
Of all the peculiar things that had happened in the last several days, laughing with her late husband’s mistress scarcely a week after his funeral might have been the oddest.
“Derring never laughed at my jokes. But I laughed at all of his, even though I didn’t find him amusing. He sulked if I didn’t,” Delilah said.
“It’s a small but killing thing, isn’t?”
“It is.”
“He wasn’t funny at all.”
“He really wasn’t.” Delilah felt only a twinge of disloyalty. It was the truth. She was beginning to like the truth, though, like sherry and cursing, she suspected it was probably best to be judicious in the partaking and delivery of it.
A lull fell.
“So what will you do now, Mrs. Breedlove?”
“Well,” Angelique said, “I intend to finish this sherry, fill my pockets with rocks, and wade into the Thames. Oh, and do call me Angelique.”